IIRC, the sale of French Mirages and Super Etendards caused a pretty significant diplomatic dust up between France and the US.
Well, they could have, but only at the cost of irreparably damaging the NATO alliance. And that was never going to happen. It's why the US supported the UK over Argentina despite having a defense pact with them.Arms sales always do. France sold them anyway - there was no way US could stop them, any more than they could stop Israel selling a load of Neshers to Argentina.
Well, they could have, but only at the cost of irreparably damaging the NATO alliance.
France politically left the alliance. But they were very clear that their military would still cooperate with NATO and would deploy to Germany if the Soviet s crossed the IGB. So there was still a huge incentive for the US to not embargo them or militarily force the aircraft not to be soldFrance, of course, left NATO in 1966, and would not rejoin until 1996, during which time they could sell arms to whoever they wished and be end users of US-made force multipliers - C-135F and the E-3F.
France politically left the alliance.
What I mean is, due to internal politics (and de Gualle being de Gualle) France officially left the alliance in a political move, but still fully intended to operate alongside NATO in Europe in any Cold War goes hot scenario.The reverse is true.
It militarily left the NATO alliance, but remained in the political alliance
